In his New Year’s message aired on state media on New Year's Day, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed his willingness to send a delegation to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics and hold talks with South Korea.
Pyongyang then accepted Seoul’s proposal for high-level dialogue, leading to the resumption of cross-border talks.
In his New Year’s speech, Kim said that South and North Korean authorities can meet to discuss the North's dispatch of a delegation to the Winter Games. But before anything else, he called for an ease in military tensions between the two Koreas and a peaceful environment on the Korean Peninsula.
He said that in order to improve inter-Korean relations, he will open up paths for dialogue to anyone.
However, he called on the Seoul government to stop all rehearsals for a nuclear war conducted with foreign powers, and also to stop drawing in U.S. nuclear equipment and invasive forces onto the peninsula.
This call is viewed as an open request to halt joint military drills with Washington as well as the deployment of U.S. strategic assets on the peninsula.
Kim also continued his nuclear threats. He warned that the whole U.S. mainland is within striking distance and that he has a nuclear button on his desk ready for use.
It marked the first time he has used the term "nuclear button."
He said North Korea must continue to mass produce and deploy nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles, and stressed to maintain an operational posture at all times to immediately counter any nuclear war mongering by the enemy.
In response to Kim's extended olive branch, South Korea proposed high-level talks to be held Tuesday to discuss the North's Olympic participation and ways to improve cross-border ties. The North accepted the proposal on Friday.
The North's message was sent under the name of Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, and addressed to South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon.
If the talks take place as scheduled on Tuesday, it will be the first inter-Korean government meeting since December 2015.
Seoul's Unification Ministry said the topics under discussion would be the Olympics and ways to improve inter-Korean ties. It said the two sides decided to go over details of the meeting including the composition of the delegation through the exchange of documents.
There have also been concerns of a fracture in the coordination between Seoul and Washington. But President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump talked on the phone Thursday and brushed off such worries.
The two leaders agreed to delay holding joint military drills during the Olympics, while Trump expressed support for President Moon’s North Korea policies including inter-Korean dialogue.